st classic work. It is indeed music which
appeals to refined and sensitive temperaments.
This mystical opera was produced in Paris, at the Opera Comique,
in April, 1902, and at once made a sensation. It had any number of
performances and still continues as one of the high lights of the
French stage. Its fame soon reached America, and the first performance
was given in New York in 1907, with a notable cast of singing actors,
among whom Mary Garden, as the heroine gave an unforgettable, poetic
interpretation.
Many songs have been left us by this unique composer. He was
especially fond of poetry and steeped himself in the verse of
Verlaine, Villon, Baudelaire and Mallarme. He chose the most
unexpected, the most subtle, and wedded it to sounds which invariably
expressed the full meaning. He breathed the breath of life into these
vague, shadowy poems, just as he made Maeterlinck's "Pelleas" live
again.
As the years passed, Claude Debussy won more and more distinction as
a unique composer, but also gained the reputation of being a very
unsociable man. Physically it has been said that in his youth he
seemed like an Assyrian Prince; through life he retained his somewhat
Asiatic appearance. His eyes were slightly narrowed, his black hair
curled lightly over an extremely broad forehead. He spoke little
and often in brusque phrase. For this reason he was frequently
misunderstood, as the irony and sarcasm with which he sometimes spoke
did not tend to make friends. But this attitude was only turned toward
those who did not comprehend him and his ideals, or who endeavored to
falsify what he believed in and esteemed.
A friend of the artist writes:
"I met Claude Debussy for the first time in 1906. Living myself in
a provincial town, I had for several years known and greatly admired
some of the songs and the opera, 'Pelleas and Melisande,' and I
made each of my short visits to Paris an opportunity of improving my
acquaintance with these works. A young composer, Andre Caplet, with
whom I had long been intimate, proposed to introduce me to Debussy;
but the rumors I had heard about the composer's preferred seclusion
always made me refuse in spite of my great desire to know him. I
now had a desire to express the feelings awakened in me, and
to communicate to others, by means of articles and lectures, my
admiration for, and my belief in, the composer and his work. The
result was that one day, in 1906, Debussy let me know through
|